Y offers preschool programs focusing on arts and natural sciences

Whether their passion is painting pictures or playing with plants, youngsters will have more opportunities to learn this year at preschool programs offered by the South Shore YMCA.

The YMCA has opened a new school at Laura’s Center for the Arts in Hanover and has expanded its space at the Nature Center Preschool in Norwell.

Both schools offer the traditional preschool curriculum, but the Laura’s Center for the Arts Preschool will enrich its program with the arts, while the nature center’s preschool focuses on the natural sciences.

Laura Center for the Arts Preschool Director and lead teacher Layni Loumiotis-Hook said the school will give more options to kids and help balance the other preschool programs offered by the Y, including the science-focused Nature Center Preschool and the traditional State Street Early Learning Center in Quincy.

“It’s really exciting to spearhead a new program,” Loumiotis-Hook, who is also the lead preschool teacher at State Street, said. “I think it’s great to teach kids at an early age to express themselves in constructive ways in different mediums of creativity, whether it’s painting, crayons, oil pastels or, for some, it’s the performing arts.”

The Laura Center Arts Preschool, which is hosting a series of open houses for the next two weeks, will utilize its spot in the arts center, home to the Y’s fine and performing arts department.

It’s a perfect place for the school, Loumiotis-Hook said. “It’s a rich environment for small children to have access to,” she said. “We have amazing resources in the other staff instructors here who teach drama, art, and music.”

About two miles away, teachers at the Nature Center Preschool in Norwell were also setting up early last week for the school year to start.

Although the center added a new classroom, a bright yellow room called the sun room, last year, Director Diane Thureson said few know about it. The earth classroom on the lower level of the center was also completely redone, Thureson said, and the school can now take 128 students.

“We’re still trying to get the word out. We want to let the communities know we have more spaces available,” she said.

For more information on the Nature Center Preschool, visit southshorenaturalsciencecenter.org/preschool/ or call 781-659-2559.

For more information on the Laura’s Center for the Arts Preschool, visit ssymca.org/millpond/lca-preschool/.

Open houses will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. today and from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday at 79 Mill St., Hanover. Children are welcome.

Follow Caitlin on Twitter @MarinerCaitlin or reach her at cflaherty@wickedlocal.com